Gardener looks to bring veggies to Jacksonville's urban food deserts

Some ancient corns, leafy greens flourish in muggy Florida heat

Valerie Herrmann, a proponent of edible forest gardens, stands in an arbor of vegetables she built.

In a city spotted with food deserts, one professional gardener is trying to bring a little green back to Jacksonville.

Valerie Herrmann, director of The Food Park Project, started growing urban gardens around Northeast Florida about five years ago and has expanded the project to four spots across the area. She’s grown extensive gardens outside a Jacksonville Beach Montessori school and a downtown non-profit providing employment to sex trade victims, among others.

Herrmann is now inviting any residents who are interested in creating an urban garden in Jacksonville to visit her newest project by appointment, tucked away at a private Mandarin home.

Herrmann started creating urban gardens as a way to combat Jacksonville’s issue with food deserts and as a way to show it’s possible to grow fruits and vegetables around homes and businesses without depleting the area’s water resources, she said.

Jacksonville is spotted with food deserts, areas where it is difficult to buy quality and affordable fresh food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Food deserts are particularly noticeable on Jacksonville’s Northside, as well as pockets of Westside.

Getting urban gardens set up isn’t easy. Herrmann’s gardens are time intensive at first, but they aren’t necessarily expensive. For some projects, she said, she’s had groups collect discarded leaves and woodchips for compost and bought cheaper seeds instead of partially grown plants. Other projects cost thousands of dollars for vast quantities of diverse and rare plants, she said.

One big hurdle is getting every sector of the community on board. In May, a garden she set up at the J.S. Johnson Youth Center was dug up and disposed of to build a handicapped parking space so the center could be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Her project is labeled an urban garden, but it’s a small ecosystem in and of itself, she said. Her mock up plot in Mandarin has at least 150 types of plants including trees, bushes and every size plant in between.

Cow peas and buckwheat shade the soil to keep it moist and provide fertilizer when their leaves die. Medicinal plants used to treat toothaches and fevers rested in the sun.

Mixed in were a rare treat: endangered seeds sent to her by Joseph Simcox at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, a Missouri-based organization focused on increasing public awareness of historic plants that have faded from popularity and are near extinction.

Certain plants, such as ancient types of corn and leafy greens, flourish in the muggy Florida heat, she said.

The goal is to create a space that will be able to thrive and grow with only rainwater -- no fertilizer and no extra water, she said.

“It’s just observing nature and replicating what she’s doing, because no one’s bringing fertilizer into the forest,” Herrmann said.

She said she specifically picked plants that thrive in Florida’s hot, wet environment. She builds swales -- water ditches that double as a pathway -- that catch rain water and eventually make it unnecessary to water the gardens, she said. After a few years, the water from the swales should trickle down through the soil and will eventually help add water back to the area’s aquifer.

Her next project will be to build a garden behind European Street Cafe’s Beach Boulevard store, said restaurant co-owner Carrie Zarka Dooley. She hopes to grow items the restaurant and its vegan store, Shakti Life Kitchen, can use in their cooking, such as lemons, parsley for tabbouleh and kale for kale chips.

“It would be very empowering to be able to grow our own food,” she said.

Herrmann’s mission, she said, is to spread urban gardens all across Jacksonville to give residents access to a green space to relax, a healthy plate full of vegetables and an area to connect with other members of the community.

“To me, the answer to everything is in the garden,” she said. “It’s not only regenerating the land, but it’s regenerating our health.”

"One big hurdle is getting every sector of the community on board. In May, a garden she set up at the J.S. Johnson Youth Center was dug up and disposed of to build a handicapped parking space so the center could be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act." - one HC space is 12' wide and with a 5' aisle you have 17' x 18'(a little larger for angle parking) deep dug up assuming no curbing. You tell me that was the only place she could put a garden??